Guests in The Sustainable Hour on 13 November 2019 are:

[At 7 min] Climate striker, 11-year-old student and from today also The Sustainable Hour’s youth reporter Ben Pocock whose first audio report for The Sustainable Hour is about the climate strikes.

[At 17 min] Youth-book author Mark Smith who has written three cli-fi books – climate change fiction – and now has a fouth on its way, inspired by the Anglesea coalfired power station, which was closed down after a year-long community campaign.

[At 34 min] Rusty talks with the recently elected chair of Beanstalk Organic, Michelle Roach. The company supplies an organic food basket with seasonal and locally sourced produce to customers once per week. The community comes together and can shop in a safe environment. They are connected with the farmers and join with the supplier on working bees.

[At 40 min] On the phone, Tony talks with Paola Cassoni, co-owner of Bimblebox Nature Refuge in Queensland. She is fighting a lonely fight against Clive Palmer’s mining company, which plans to clear thousands of hectares of land to start digging up more climate-destroying coal.

We also play an excerpt of New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern‘s celebrative speech last week as a zero carbon legislation was implemented by the New Zealand parliament. And an excerpt of a 14-year-old protester Grace, speaking in front of the British Department of Education.

The hour is introduced with short statements by fire fighter Greg Mullins interviewed by the ABC, senator Jordon Steele-John stating in the Australian government that the two major parties are “arsonists”, and a short excerpt of Bruce Shillingsworth‘s statement in ABC’s Q&A, where he said that “Australians needs to wake up!”

“You need to begin with an apology. Apologise for the fact that this is what the world has come to – through deliberate ignorance and through vested interests having way to much sway over governments for the last however-many years…”~ Mark Smith, author

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“The news of catastrophic fires across the country is harder to bear with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his political mates dismissing the role of climate change in fuelling these fires. They are ignoring the chorus of scientists, fire fighters, farmers and fire-affected communities calling for stronger climate action. In Victoria, the Andrews government has warned of a “long, hot, dry and dangerous” bushfire season heightened by the climate crisis.”~ Taegen Edwards, Environment Victoria

“Catastrophic, unprecedented bushfires are tearing across the country. Our communities are being devastated. Our homes destroyed. People are dying. As we hold each other.